Welcome to Midworld
by Varyar
Summary: A stranger awakens in the last years of Mid-world. Can Marty find his way home?
1. Chapter 1

**Part One **

The last thing Marty remembered was a high-pitched sort of hiss, like - like -

**All things serve the Beam**

The first thing he heard was a woman singing. Her voice was faint and crackly and

_Oh Shenandoah. I love your daughter,_

_Away, you rolling river_

it took a few seconds for Marty to realize it was a radio. An old, scratchy one. His head was buzzing, and there was a strange smell - crushed yulberries, he'd later learn - in the air that made his closed eyes water.

_rolling river_

_Oh, Shenandoah, I love your_

Wherever he was, it sure wasn't the 8:30 flight making its final approach to -

"Midway?"

Marty coughed at the hoarse sound of his own voice, then winced at how painful it was to speak, and to cough. He tried to open his eyes, but when he did, all he saw was blackness.

Panicking, Marty reached for his eyes and ignored the aches that ran up and down his arms as he did. Then he gasped and winced. His eyes! What the fuck had happened to his eyes? They felt like -

cloth. A blindfold. A damp blindfold?

There was a click as the radio went silent. Then, warm hands rested on his shoulders for a moment.

"Lie still," a woman's voice - or a voice belonging to someone between girl and woman - said softly. "Thou'rt still sick-dizzy."

Marty sensed the wisdom in this. More to the point, even the pathetically faint exertion so far had tired him out. His arms fell back down onto what had to be a bed and the hands let go. Marty didn't like that. Blindfolded, numb in most of his body, he needed that contact or else it felt like he was falling again, falling into -

"Be at ease," the young woman murmured. Marty heard, or felt, her moving around behind his head. "All's well."

"Where am I? Is this the hospital? Did the plane make it to Midway?"

Silence for a moment. "I ken neither hospitals nor plains that travel. But if 'tis Midway thou seek, it lies far off - two hundred wheels, or so 'tis on the old maps."

Marty groaned. He could barely understand her and her Amish - had to be Amish, right? - accent. "Then where are we?" he asked after a few seconds to catch his strength.

There was a creaking noise, wood scraping on wood, and a different voice answered, a man's voice, hard and raspy, a little like Clint Eastwood minus a decade or three. "Hagen's Hill, friend, on the outskirts of what was, upon a time, Howley Barony."

"Hagen's Hill? Howling Barony? What the hell is going on?" Marty demanded. "What the fuck happened to the plane?" He reached for the blindfold again, but was stopped cold by a grip on his wrist. A half-second's struggle told Marty that even when he was up and at full health, he'd never be able to match the man's strength.

"Be at ease," the man said, and Marty noted to himself that he much prefered it when the woman had said it. "How did you find yourself in the cold?"

"Cold? I didn't, I don't, the last thing I remember was the plane, and that buzzing when we started to land..."

"He speaks strongly strange, Pa," the young woman said in an undertone. Marty had to strain to hear it, but he could. "Ken you what he means?"

"I think I might."

"Well, tell me, then!" Marty hissed.

"What does the word thinny mean to you?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

A bewildering hour later...

Marty stared at the strange display set out on the low ironwood dresser (dragged over next to his sickbed, and that couldn't have been an easy feat, the thing had to weigh a ton). It consisted of a large bowl filled with snow, and an icicle sticking up out of the middle - then looked at the young woman (Nicole was her name) and the old man (Randolph, his).

"What?" he began to ask, but Randolph's stern look silenced him. _This is not a man with whom to fuck_, Marty realized.

And then, to his surprise, Randolph began a reverent chant in a language Marty didn't under -

_Wait, how do I understand _any_ of what they say? _

- stand, a language that had a rough, kinda German-y sort of sound to it. The man's face softened as he murmured, a remarkable transformation that took a decade off his age and made Marty wonder just how old he really was. As for the words, it was a stream of strangeness out of which Marty could only make out a few distinct words. _Ka_ and _Gan_ were both said a few times, and _Can Calyx_ (as 'twas properly spelt, although Marty wrongly heard it as Cancalis at first) most of all.

"This is the Tower. The center of All-world and of all worlds," Randolph said, slowly and in a manner that Marty recognized as repeating something the man had once been told himself. "The Axis Mundi."

Marty raised an eyebrow. He'd heard that before... somewhere...

"See how it stands, pure and strong." Again, Randolph was passing on a phrase once given to him. He turned to Nicole, who struck a big, crude looking match and placed it against the wick of a small candle, then held the candle up against the icicle. Predictably enougn, the ice began to melt, and so did the snow in the bowl. "And now it wavers and warps," Randolph said as a few drops began to trickle down the side of the icicle. One hit the snow and made a minute puddle.

"See you that? A thinny. Where the worlds melt together."

More drops of water eroded the icicle.

"So it is as the world moves on. That which kept back the flames, the fires of Na'ar, is failing." Nicole moved the candle closer to the icicle.

Marty shivered and rubbed at his arms. His vision collapsed, tunneled, focused in on Randolph's old-again face and the intensity in his dark eyes, lit up strange by the nearby candle. Directly between them was the icicle Tower.

A second or three passed, and then the Tower snapped just above the base and fell into the mushy snow.

Marty jumped back, startled and snapped out of the reverie.

"O Discordia," Nicole sighed as she blew out the candle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

Cabin fever was a bitch, no doubt about it.

Marty stared up at the dark wooden ceiling of the cabin. Still the same. Cobweb over there, rusty nail poking out of the beam just a little bit above his head, long narrow crack off to the side...

The rest of the cabin, quiet now with Randolph out and Nicole dozing in her room right next to his, that was more interesting.

It had only been an hour ago that Marty realized he was in Randolph's bedroom. That made sense. Old time-y modesty and chivalry meant no sleeping in The Girl's room. And Randolph could tough it out on the bench in the front of the cabin.

Marty sensed that Randolph had done his share of toughing it out over the years. The man's face was a map of hardship. Lost Causes, 5 Miles. Broken Bones, Next Exit. He seemed to have landed on his feet, though.

The cabin was one clue. This was a lived-in place, a home not just a house. And he had a Nicole-shaped family. Some dim, silent part of Marty's brain sensed that his arrival would upset the stability, but he was still too sick to dwell on it. Instead he tried to learn as much as he could without asking questions that might upset them.

If nothing else, it kept him from going any more stir crazy.

Randolph's room had enough to keep him busy, at least. The main feature was how bare it was. Poverty? A lack of sentiment? Probably both, Marty figured. From what he'd gathered, this place hadn't known plenty in a long, long time.

So what there was in the way of decorations had to be important.

A wooden statuette of a horse, roughly carved enough to make Marty suspect that Randolph or Nicole or the late Mrs. Randolph had made it. Marty struck Randolph off the list of suspects. One of the women, then.

A brass cross hanging on a leather cord, itself hanging from a nail above the dresser. Another memento of the late missus?

And, oh yeah, can't forget this, a well-worn, well-oiled leather belt, covered with little pockets (for bullets), on which hung two big black holsters. No guns, though.

Marty had gotten one brief glimpse of a gun, a banged-up rifle, in the main room when Nicole came in to check on him earlier (in his fever-ish memory, that was as clear as the when got). Not a pistol, let alone a pair of them. So where were the pistols that went with the belt? There was a story there, and he wanted to hear it.

Working up the nerve to ask wasn't going to be easy. No sir.

With the unnerving image of an annoyed Randolph fixed in his brain, Marty drifted back to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**

"I've a gift for thee."

Marty looked away from the wintry woods outside the cabin. Staring out at the snow-covered pines and birches made him dizzy. It was postcard beautiful, definitely not something you'd expect on the eve of the Apocalypse, and it made him wonder if his host was a liar or a madman. Looking at it was bad business. Looking at _her_ was far better.

Even if she hadn't been nursing him back to health for the last two days, Marty probably would've been smitten. She was tall, and a healthy sort of slender, with a bright crown of red hair mostly hidden under plain, homespun bonnets.

As it was, he literally owed her his life. It had been her who'd found him "'pon the pond's hill" half-naked and mostly covered in snow (which was, perhaps, another reason he didn't like to look out at the woods) and brought him back to the cabin.

Marty didn't remember any of that. Nor could he remember how he'd ended up in the snowy field,

Worse, worse by far, was his fading memory of everything _before_ that. He knew his name, Marty Black. He knew he came from Chicago, although the images that should have gone with the name were a crazy kaleidoscope blur, but not what he did there. He knew his parents were named Dennis and Martha, and that he had an older (?) brother named Doug. He knew that he hadn't had a girlfriend since Lisa had moved to Austin eight months ago.

He remembered those things today. Tomorrow? After another day of the fog that was eating his past?

Marty shuddered.

Nicole looked down at him. "What is it? More aches?"

"In my brain, that's all," Marty said, smiling to reassure her. And himself. He was still reeling from everything "Pa" had told him about the state of the world in that eerie twilight exposition. _And I thought _I_ had problems. _The weirdest thing - maybe - about it was that neither Nicole, nor Randolph, seemed to be panicking about it. Were they both crazy? Or just beyond caring?

"This may put thee at ease," Nicole said, holding up a roughly made clay bowl. A bit of steam hung over it, and Marty caught a whiff of -

"Soup?"

Nicole nodded and set the bowl down on the wobbly old steps of the cabin. Gingerly, since he still ached here and there, Marty rolled over and stared at the bowl. Red soup with meat and greens in it. Real food instead of mushy, watered down - well, soup - spoon fed by his nurse and his craggier nurse.

His stomach loudly proclaimed interest in the matter.

Nicole laughed. "Thou may'nt be so glad after eating it."

"It's food. Real actual food."

"Thou may'nt say so after eating it, either," Nicole said. "We're no Estate o' Land with true cooks and electric kitchen fires."

"Real. Actual. Food," Marty insisted. He spooned up some of the soup and breathed it in before swallowing it down.

Nicole's warnings were apt. It wasn't exactly gourmet quality. But he didn't care.

"Swiftly ate, stomach ache," Nicole warned as Marty began guzzling it down, spoonful after spoonful.

Marty smirked at her. But he did slow down a little. "Thank you," he said when it was done - and he drained the bowl into his mouth to make sure it was really all gone.

"Thou'rt our guest here," Nicole said with a smile. "And a far guest, at that."

"Yeah..." Marty set the bowl back down. That had been the other shoe to drop, and it was a hell of a big one. Okay, you jumped into this world through a 'thinny' (some kind of hole in the world - _worlds_), or maybe because you died in the other place. And, oh yeah, there's no way back. Have some gruel!

He took it all in for a minute or two, then turned back to Nicole. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," she answered, his tone making her just a little bit wary. Marty felt a light sting of embarassment. He'd been better at hiding intense curiousity before, back when he was... whatever he was. The memory was teasing and hiding just out of reach.

"Where are your father's guns?"

Nicole's brow furrowed. "The long-shooter? In the front room, upon hooks."

"No. Not the rif - long-shooter. The pistols. The one that go in the belt."

A shadow fell across Marty's back before a very flustered looking Nicole could form an answer. _Well, shit._

"Enough air for one day," Randolph said.

End. Of. Discussion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five**

Long days passed, a month at least, while Marty mended and got used to the simple rhythms of life in Hagen's Hill. Early waking and simple breakfast, a morning of hard work, a fine lunch, more work until the sun began its descent into the west-ish, and then beating of the bounds to make sure no wolves - or worse - were lurking about. This last was, Randolph said, the most important of all duties.

One night, after supper, Marty asked one of the many questions that gnawed at his mind. Just one - he knew he had to dole them out slowly. Randolph's hospitality might have limits, his patience definitely did, as that afternoon on the porch had shown, and Marty knew he wouldn't last twenty-four hours if cast out into the cold.

"So..."

Randolph turned his gaze in Marty's direction, and to Marty's credit, he didn't feel like wilting from it. "Ask your asking..."

"I'm pretty clear on how _I_ got here, but what about you?" Marty asked. "Who _are_ you?"

At the far end of the room, where she was setting the supper dishes to dry, Nicole looked over. In the dim light of the cabin, Marty couldn't decipher her expression.

Randolph gazed at Marty for a moment before nodding. "So be it," he said. "So be it. I am Randolph Van Wyk, Randolph of Gilead, and once upon a time, I was to be a gunslinger."

Marty felt a sudden chill. Gunslinger. _Gunslinger_.

Unbidden, Nicole added two logs to the fire. 'Twould be a long night.

"Was to be, but wasn't..." Randolph sighed. How to tell it? The great, tragic story that began with Arthur Eld, if not ages before even _his_ long-ago, and ended in a grassy lane in the shadows of the citadel of Gilead, in which he himself was just a bit player... "Once upon a time..."

An hour passed, at least, and probably more, story-time wasn't as easy to keep track of as ordinary time, as Randolph spoke of the bloody birth of the kingdom of All-world out of the ashes of the Great Fire, and the knights, the gunslingers, sworn to protect it, and the Tower at its heart. Victory and woe followed, and a long defeat, and through it all, the gunslingers endured. Generation after generation of boys taught in the ancient ways, some of whom were touched by _ka_ and earned the right to carry the gun, and the duties that came with it.

"My class was the last... There were fifty-six of us to begin with, and that was the fewest ever, you see. So many of the old families were gone, cursed either with no sons or sons who tried their hand and failed. Towards the end, naught but twenty-two of those fifty-six were left. It's a hard road for a boy to walk, you see," Randolph said as he stirred the embers with an iron poker. Sparks drifted up, fading and vanishing in the darkness. "Aye, hard indeed..." The old man stared into the fire for a moment, a long moment, but Marty knew better than to prod.

"And then Roland Deschain, not yet old enough to shave, wins his guns. Fourteen, he was, the youngest in all the long years. _Fourteen._ There was talk of secret deals, of cheating, for Roland's father was _dinh_ of Gilead." Randolph scowled. "Foolish words. Roland was never a cheater, not in such things. And Cort?" He snorted. "Cort would sooner eat his own eyes than break the vows of honesty. Buit _fourteen_. And me eighteen, the age when it was expected to try the line, and an age when words like 'wait' and 'not ready' are poison."

In his mind's eye, Marty could see it. Randolph, put to shame by Roland earning his guns and oh, yes, there must have been a grudge between them on top of that, even if Randolph would not speak of it now, maybe didn't even remember... Bad blood and envy, acid for the mind if ever there was.

It was a hot summer day, unblessed by any breeze. Randolph, fighting sticks in hand and oh, what pride, gunbelt worn and ready for the prize of his victory, at the east end of a green courtyard. Like a football field, of sorts, but with high stakes resting on the game. Honor and life itself in the balance. This, the spectators knew. Roland was there, and his circle of friends - Allgood, Johns, DeCurry, Whitman - and this pleased Randolph. So was Randolph's own brother, Winston, a reedy, eagle-eyed boy a year younger, but wiser (Randolph now knew, much too late). They looked on impassively, as was expected by custom. A pair of true gunslingers, Randolph had forgotten their names, were there, too, and a double fistful of meaningless civilians, high-born gentlemen and ladies come for the show. The gunslingers and prentices ignored these fancy folken with casual scorn.

And there he was. The ineffable Cort. Beater of boys. Forger of gunslingers. A mountain of a man with scars on top of his scars. A single ironwood staff in hand, looking relaxed, loose, but ready to spring at this arrogant whelp who thought to test himself driven by nothing but envy despite his talk when the challenge had been laid down the day before.

The summer's morn challenge began with ancient phrases, a ritual that didn't go back to the great, hopeful days of Arthur Eld, Lord o' the White, but nearly so, nearly so. "Has Cort come?" Randolph asked gruffly. Long practice, and instructive days, had beaten the skill of holding back visible impatience into Randolph. Or so he thought. Cort saw through it, as only one who knows such tricks, one who _teaches_ such tricks, could.

"Cort is here," the man said. "Have you come here for a serious purpose, boy?"

Randolph spoke and nodded as he did. "I have come for a serious purpose."

"Have you come as an outcast from your father's house?"

"I have so come." His father's house, aye, but not his father. His father was dead, shot and slain in the western wars. Another reason for Randolph's haste. Only a gunslinger could avenge a gunslinger.

"What is your weapon?"

"My weapons are my sticks." Randolph raised them both. The wood was old and strong. Not so strong as steel, but strong. Strong enough. (He hoped, oh he hoped)

Cort nodded slowly, as if bored. A trick, a goad. Perhaps. "So then have you at me, boy?"

"I do."

"In whose name?"

"In the name of my father."

"Say his name."

"Cyril Van Wyk, of the line of Eld." Randolph smiled a little, a touch of pride. Randolph, and behind him, Cyril, and behind _him_, twenty-six generations of Van Wyks, all the way to the legendary Carel, him who brought to heel the six-eyed mutants of the Shavéd Mountains, laying them low in the name of the White.

"Be swift, then," Cort said before stepping to the line and waiting. Randolph did not keep him waiting long, and that was ever his fault. Today, it was his failing.

It was over in a flash, as so many fights are, no matter what you might have seen on the big or small screen. A flurry of painful blows, rough, desperate scrambling, and the final crack of Randolph's arm as Cort snapped it with a vicious strike with his staff.

And then a hush, the only sound Randolph's pained panting. After a second or two, Cort made a disappointed snort, but his heart ached. _Another one for the western road and the delight of the Dark, then. _

The crowd, previously neutral, at the worst, turned on Randolph with their eyes. Even Winston. He was an outcast. To them, even Winston, it was done. He wasn't Randolph Van Wyk, son of Cyril, but a stranger, an intruder in the innermost heart of civilization. Randolph bore the stares evenly, despite the pain and the far worse shame, and walked straight through the west end, his good arm cradling his ruined one.

Back in the now, Randolph poked the fire again. Another upwards rain of sparks lit up the crags and hollows of his face. "The road went west. Long wheels, through all the baronies. New Canaan, Sylvania, on and on, and then the wild land. Dark forests, haunted and not just with bandits, and then Garlan..." Here he paused, lost in some memory. More pain to add to the pile. "There I was for a time, and then the wars pulled and pushed at me until I found myself back in what had been the Affiliation. By then, it was burning."

The fire hissed and one of the blackened logs fell inwards. Sparks shot up above a fleeting cloud of soot.

"And then I found my Mara." Most of the misery on Randolph's face melted away. "A balm after long years... That'll bide us both for tonight, I think."


	6. Chapter 6

"What are your intentions towards my daughter?"

Marty froze. And the day _had_ been going great so far. Randolph had announced "Time for you to earn your keep" that morning, which meant going hunting, apparently. Accordingly, here they were - Randolph with the rifle and Marty with a rough spear (a bow had been offered, but that sort of thing was way beyond Marty's abilities). "Intentions?" Marty asked, turning back to give Randolph his best quizzical look.

Randolph didn't buy it for a second. "Don't try to con me, boy. I'm no idiot."

Marty shook his head. "Idiot's the last thing you are, Randolph."

"Well then?"

"I like Nicole."

"I'd noticed. You should. She gave of herself to save you."

Marty's puzzlement was clear. "Gave of - what?"

Randolph smirked. "It wasn't just herbs and bandages that cured you. Nicole put her _khef_ into that frost-bitten body of yours."

"_Khef_? Is this another High Speech thing?"

"Of course." Randolph continued to smirk. He imagined this was what Cort had felt like all those long years ago.

"And what does it mean?" Marty had learned asking directly was the only chance of getting answers out of Randolph.

"More than one thing, as all good words do. But for you, the meaning that matters, is sharing of life. The very _essence_ of life. Do you understand?" It was no idle question. Randolph needed Marty to know what he owed.

Marty stared wordlessly at Randolph. "She used magic?"

"Gah!" Randolph almost cuffed the younger man, but held back. Not least because it was fairly close to the truth. "Hear me well, Marty. The old families, the gunslinger lines, carry gifts in the blood. There are many, and not nearly every generation shows them. But Nicole has the gift. For her, it is healing. She gave of her _khef _to save you. A part of her life, her soul, is bond to yours now. Forever. To save a stranger." Randolph smiled a fierce, proud smile. No daughter of his could have done better.

Marty just gaped as the implications became clear. How - what - how - what did you even _say_ to something like that? "Oh," was what he said, and this time Randolph did cuff him upside the head.

"Oh indeed. You owe her, boy. And there'll be a time when I'm not here. I'd not see her alone," Randolph said quietly. "I've no doubt she can keep herself hale for a long time here by herself, but it's no life... being alone is being a prisoner. I wouldn't have her endure that."

"I wouldn't either," Marty said. Bewildered, he wondered what exactly had just occured. But only for a moment. The interloper had been brought in. That was, at last, the moment when he told himself _I'm here to stay_. And it didn't gnaw at him like he'd been afraid it would. But being bound to Nicole - _oh, God, don't go _there - would take some getting used to. The rightness of it, that was there, it was an All-World thing, but still... "I won't let her down."

And then a hissed, awed "Holee fuck, what is _that_?"

Randolph whirled, and the rifle was up at the ready in a blur. And down just as quickly. "That's Big Master Buck," Randolph murmured as the two stared across the snowy field at the enormous stag.

Marty had dim memories of hunting with - his father? Probably. He knew that twenty points was a good number, and thirty was pretty remarkable. The great white deer gazing back at them was forty points, if not more.

"Yon beast's been here as long as I," Randolph whispered. "Like as not, he'll still be here when I'm dead and gone, too."

Marty had his doubts on that number. Then again, how did he know how long deer lived around here? So much else was skewed, why not that, too?

After a moment or two, Big Master Buck darted off with almost unseemly grace for a creature his side. Marty caught a few blurred glimpses through snow-covered trees, and then it was gone.

Marty let go of a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "Wow."

"Aye. Wow. Let's work back," Randolph said. "We can check the rabbit traps."

"Okay," Marty said. Nicole was waiting, anyway. A smile played across his lips at that. _Yeah. I'm here to stay_.


	7. Chapter 7

It's the little things you miss.

Right now, the little thing in question was an electric razor. Marty's face itched like crazy. There was a straight razor, and Marty had of course used it several times since his appearing, but never very comfortably. _At least I only cut myself once or twice each time now,_ he thought as he sat down and took up the old blade again.

As Marty was raising it up to his cheek, Nicole's hand suddenly closed on his wrist. _Oh my giddy aunt..._

"I've seen thee bleed and wince enough, silly boy. Give the blade over to me, if thou would."

"Do you know how to..." Marty's question trailed off at the look of bemusement on Nicole's face. Without another word, he handed the razor over. Perhaps his fingers brushed against hers longer than strictly neccesary.

"Hold steady now, hold still now," Nicole said in a sing-song voice. The cool blade rested against Marty's cheek, high up near his out of control sideburns. Then there was a barely audible flick, and that only because the razor was near his ears, and Nicole set to work.

As she did, she began to sing. Marty sort of recognized the song, and the not-quite-thereness of this version made him smile - at least until Nicole gave him a swift 'don't move, thee' poke with her free hand.

"_Oh Danny-sai, the pipes, the pipes are calling_

_From vale to vale, and all along the sea side_

_The summer's gone, and all the lilies falling_

_It's thee, it's thee, must go and I must bide._

_But come thou back when summer's in the meadow_

_Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow_

_And I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow_

_Oh Danny-sai, oh Danny-sai, I love thee so_.

_But when ye come, and all the flow'rs are dying_

_If I am dead, as dead I well may be_

_Thou'll come and find the place where I am lying_

_And kneel and pray to Chloe there for me._

_And I shall hear, tho' soft thee tread above me_

_And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be_

_For thou will bend and tell me that thee love me_

_And I shall sleep in peace until thou come to me._

_Oh Danny-sai, oh Danny-sai, I love thee so._"

"Cheery," Marty said, or rather, murmured as stiffly as he could. "All your songs so sad here?"

Nicole lifted the razor away from Marty's left cheek. "Not all, no, not all." She thought for a moment, and then Marty could feel her smile as she started again.

"_Far out to sea and east o' Mejis,_

_'Tis a kingdom named Ka-kethis._

_No place on Earth compares to this_

_For sheer delightfulness and bliss._

_Though the Clearing is fair and bright,_

_Ka-kethis is a finer sight._

_In the Clearing what's to be seen_

_But grass and flowers and branches green?_

_Though paradisal joys are sweet,_

_There's nothing there but fruit to eat;_

_No bench, no chamber, and no hall,_

_No alcoholic drink at all._

_Its inhabitants are few,_

_Maerlyn, Mim---just the two;_

_They must find it boring there_

_Without more company to share._"

Nicole stopped singing, but not shaving. "It goes on, considerably longer than 'twould take me to finish the work, even with _thine_ neck-forest."

"I'm patient."

Nicole laughed merrily. "Marty, thou'rt many things I love, but patient 'tis not..." She trailed off, realizing she'd dropped the L-Word.

Marty reached up and took her warm hand in his. "Keep singing," he said quietly. "Please."

"Would thee have me, then?" Nicole asked, her voice quavering.

"I would..." Marty squeezed her hand. "I would."

There was a moment of silence, save for the faint whisper of the wind outside, and then both of them breathed again.

"Then have me, for I would have thee," Nicole whispered.

"_But Ka-kethis offers better fare,_

_And without worry, work, or care;_

_The food is good, the drink flows free_

_At lunchtime, suppertime, and tea._

_It's true without a doubt, I swear,_

_No earthly country could compare;_

_Under Gan no land but this_

_Has such abundant joy and bliss._

_There is many a pleasant sight,_

_It's always day, there is no night._"


	8. Chapter 8

Enough of that bliss. In-World was never a land of puppies and rainbows, and as the world moved on, less than ever.

Case in point, the Redcap. He, or it, perhaps, if you like, had come riding out of the west. Those who rode with him knew it not, but his bloody trail lead back all the way to the kingdom of Porla (dust now, the world had moved on), where he had been bad before becoming a vampire and was much worse afterwards.

And now his trail had lead him to Howley, to Hagen's Hill. What he sought, he wasn't even sure. The Redcap (the name of his birth was long forgotten, even by him), was ever one to let _ka_, or happenstance he called _ka_, carry him along.

So here he was, him and his jilly, a black-haired, black-hearted witch named Jessa, and a posse of hard-calibers, most of whom still breathed. They rode in just after sunset (of course), and one old feller watching things move along from the side of the road thought _My gods, it's the thunder of Na'ar_ when he first heard the cacophany of hoofbeats approaching. He was right, or at least close enough.

"Hie! Hie!" the harriers cried out to their horses. Clouds of dust settled around the group as they came to a stop.

The Redcap needed no words. His horse, a broken-minded brute with no name, knew his master's wishes. Jessa had her own tricks, too, but it still took a word in the High Speech to bring her mount to a halt.

As one, the Redcap and his posse dismounted. Those still lingering on the streets of Hagen's Hill found it wise to get inside, and in a hurry. Doors slammed shut, and blinds and shutters were drawn as people hunkered down against the invasion.

Too late.

Singing spilled out from the oblivious hostelry down the high street, singing and the tinkle of a poorly tuned piano.

The Redcap grinned and moseyed on up that way, the others falling in behind him.

The horses stayed where they were.

The crooked sign above the hostelry's door read The Lazy Cat. The Redcap paid it no mind as he pushed open the swinging doors with surprising gentleness. There was nary a creak, and no one noticed him enter. He had a way with such things.

"Oh, a show," the Redcap murmured to Jessa with a nod towards the singer, a curly-haired girl with considerably more enthusiasm than talent, but a fair measure of the latter, too.

"_I stepped up to my rival, my dagger in my band._

_I caught him by the collar, and boldly bade him stand._

_Being driven to desperation, I stabbed him in the breast,_

_But was betrayed by Lia, the Lily of the West!_"

It was only as the posse fanned out that the hostel-folk noticed their arrival. There was some nervous stirring, and the piano player's hands faltered on the keys.

"_At length the day of trial came, I boldly made my plea,_

_But the judge and jury they soon convicted me._

_To deceive both judge and jury so modestly she dressed,_

_And there she swore my life away, the Lily of the West..._"

Anna, for that was her name, held the last sad notes and then finally noticed the Redcap and the others. Like the rest of the hostel-folk, she stared while trying not to stare.

The Redcap smiled. He liked this little bubble of tension. Savored it, almost as much as he savored popping it and drinking on all the terror that came next.

"Boo," he said.

One of the more drunken barflies let out a burbled cry at that. Smart man. The others stared at the Redcap and his friends. All of them, save Jessa, had shaved heads with red circles painted atop them. The Redcap's red circle was no painted thing, though, but a birthmark. Or so he said. Some had noticed its near perfect circular shape, but nobody argued the point. The Redcap was not someone you'd find it easy to argue with.

"Can - can I get you fellas something to drink?" the bartender asked.

The Redcap smiled at him. "Not just yet," he said, then strode forward and took Anna by the hand. "Let's have some dancing," he murmured, staring deep into Anna's eyes. She stared back, mesmerized, trapped, in a flash.

One of the barflies, a stocky farmhand named Alfred, made a lunge at the Redcap. The Redcap caught Alfred by the neck and snapped it like a twig, all without turning away from his main concern of the moment.

The hero fell with a look of dull surprise on his face. That's what started the screaming, which went on for a good five or six minutes before all was said and done.


	9. Chapter 9

"Are we there yet?"

Nicole looked over at Marty, puzzlement on her face. "No. We've only just set out. It's still three wheels and a half away."

Marty shook his head. _Right. All-World culture gap_. "Never mind..."

Only then did Nicole giggle behind one hand.

"Wait - are you playing me?"

"'Tis hard to resist," Nicole said primly, then ducked out of reach. "Stop, thee! My Pa may still see!"

That was a threat that made Marty step back. He looked at the road ahead. It wound down from the cabin, past the barn on the left and the front vegetable plot on the right; up ahead, there was the pond's hill, beyond which was the pond itself, and then the Van Wyk land ended (the line was marked by a 'fence' of large white stones) and their road merged with _the_ road, the one that stretched across the lonely miles (or wheels, if you would) between Hagen's Hill and the next town, a mysterious (to Marty) place called Chrome Town

Today, they were bound for Hagen's Hill. "For," as Nicole had said, "'tis past time thee saw more of the Barony than our little piece of it."

The road rose and fell with the land, which was hillier the farther they went. Along the way, they passed three more farms, one farmer, six goats, twelve cows (huge shaggy beasts called kyloes) and thirty reindeer. These last were roaming along the road in a silent procession, without any human around.

"They know their way," Nicole said, answering Marty's question before he could ask it.

The two stopped to watch the reindeer amble along, unconcerned with any silly human business. Marty noticed that at least one in three of the reindeer had some kind of freak-show quality - extra legs, missing eyes, or the like. "Muties," Nicole said sadly. "But such are fading, at least."

"I thought things were getting worse..."

"Oh, aye," Nicole agreed with a sigh. "But not all things. There was a war, or worse, long ago. Muties, beast or man, are the fruit of it, but they're fading."

Marty nodded. _Mutant people_?

"Let's speak of better things," Nicole said before Marty could dwell on that much.

"No problem with me," Marty told her. He couldn't think of anything, though, and they walked another few minutes in companionable silence. And then Marty stopped dead in his tracks and wondered if this was what going insane was like.

Up ahead, set a little way back from the road, but not far enough to obscure his sight of it, was a Wal-Mart. A crumbling, barren Wal-Mart, sure, but definitely a Wal-Mart. The sign still stood in front of it, tilted and faded, but unmistakeable. The parking lot was gone wild, but only a few trees grew out of the broken asphalt. One plastic roofed shopping cart corral was still more or less intact. The carts were gone, probably centuries ago.

"Marty? What is it?" Nicole asked, looking from Marty to the ruined Wal-Mart and back. "Tis just the Mart."

"But - just - it's from Earth!" Marty blurted out as he continued to stare, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, at the abandoned interloper from America.

Nicole shook her head. "Nay, 'tis from the Old Ones, them that brought the Great Fire upon All-World. There's nought there now, just empty shelves and such rusting away."

"But..." Marty stared some more, eyes a little glazed now. _Is this the future? Earth's future?_ But no - the stars were different, completely different. If it was Earth, and they'd changed that much, no Wal-Mart would be left. Especially after a world war, maybe a nuclear war. So what then? How could they have Wal-Mart?

"Would thee go inside?" Nicole asked, a trifle nervously. "'Tis said to be haunted," she added, hands clasped together.

Marty shook his head after a second or three. "No. No, it's okay. Never liked the place that much..." _When the hell did I get so jaded? It's a freakin' _Wal-Mart_..._

Nicole hastened past the relic Wal-Mart, sticking to the other side of the road, which was widening a little now. Here and there, chipped, uneven stones lay under the snow instead of just pressed-down dirt. How long had they been there? Not long compared to when the Wal-Mart had made its last sale, but long enough, Marty figured.

He hurried to catch up with Nicole. "So... are we there yet?"


End file.
